He rose from the floor of the Worcester Centrum at the wheel of a white convertible (no, not a little red Corvette) and drove around the edge of the stage while Sheila E. and the band cranked “Erotic City.” One circuit later he was out of the car, microphone in hand, cantering around the edge of the stage and whipping up a crowd that was already a mushroom cloud of hysterical anticipation.
“What y’all doing here? What you here to see?” he teased. He still hadn’t sung a word.
“YOU…PRINCE…YOU!!!!!!”
“Prince?!! What do you want to see that little faggot for?!!”
And the whole place cracked up for just a second because it was Prince tossing out the word so often directed at him, showing everyone who didn’t get him how little they mattered, telling us that WE were the cool kids and that the rest just didn’t know how to have a good time. He was inviting us into the joke to laugh with him. Even us dorky white guys who danced like we’d just checked out of a circumcision clinic wearing stiff jeans.
Prince didn’t care that we had less funk than a tub of Marshmallow Fluff. It was about the music. It was about loving the music, and the music reaching you and moving you even if you didn’t have any moves. And if you were about the music, you were in on Prince’s joke. You were in on the good time. And for a second, maybe less, you were as cool as he was. Almost.